rved of
Shakespear's plays, that, "had all the speeches been printed without the
names of the persons, we might have applied them with certainty to
every speaker." To which another critic has rejoined, that that was
impossible, since the greater part of what every man says is unstamped
with peculiarity. We have all more in us of what belongs to the common
nature of man, than of what is peculiar to the individual.

It is from this beaten, turnpike road, that the favoured few of mankind
are for ever exerting themselves to escape. The multitude grow up,
and are carried away, as grass is carried away by the mower. The
parish-register tells when they were born, and when they died: "known by
the ends of being to have been." We pass away, and leave nothing behind.
Kings, at whose very glance thousands have trembled, for the most
part serve for nothing when their breath has ceased, but as a sort of
distance-posts in the race of chronology. "The dull swain treads on"
their relics "with his clouted shoon." Our monuments are as perishable
as ourselves; and it is the most hopeless of all problems for the most
part, to tell where the mighty ones of the earth repose.

All men are aware of the frailty of life, and how short is the span
assigned us. Hence every one, who feels, or thinks he feels the power to
do so, is desirous to embalm his memory, and to be thought of by a late
posterity, to whom his personal presence shall be unknown. Mighty are
the struggles; everlasting the efforts. The greater part of these we
well know are in vain. It is Aesop's mountain in labour: "Dire was the
tossing, deep the groans:" and the result is a mouse. But is it always
so?

This brings us back to the question: "Is there indeed nothing new under
the sun?"

Most certainly there is something that is new. If, as the beast dies,
so died man, then indeed we should be without hope. But it is his
distinguishing faculty, that he can leave something behind, to testify
that he has lived. And this is not only true of the pyramids of Egypt,
and certain other works of human industry, that time seems to have no
force to destroy. It is often true of a single sentence, a single word,
which the multitudinous sea is incapable of washing away:

Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens
Possit diruere, aut innumerabilis
Annorum series, et fuga temporum.

It is the characteristic of the mind and the heart of man, that they are
progressive. One w